Egypt: Nile Dam Dispute Drifting Toward a Conflict Its Protagonists Cannot Afford

For centuries Egypt has treated the Nile as a birthright, not a shared lifeline. Now, as the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam rises without a binding agreement, the river has become the fault line of a dispute edging dangerously toward catastrophe.

For 5,000 years, Egypt has treated the Nile as if it were its own. Not a shared inheritance threading through 11 nations, not a transboundary lifeline sustaining a continent, but a birthright, ancient, unassailable and non-negotiable.

That assumption has…